Sven-Goran Eriksson has said that former Manchester City midfielder, Michael Johnson, may have been better than Steven Gerrard.
The midfielder spent over eight years at the Manchester club but only made 45 senior appearances in total, scoring three goals and delivering six assists.
At the age of 24, after being released by City in 2013, Johnson retired from football, saying in a 2020 interview with The Athletic that he struggled with life as a footballer and other aspects of his life.
Now though, Eriksson, who Johnson made more appearances under (31) than any other manager throughout his senior career, has shared some behind-the-scenes details on what the former player was like during their time together at City.
Eriksson says Hamann thought Johnson was better than Gerrard
Speaking in a recent edition of Callum’s Football Broadcast, Eriksson had this to say about Johnson and what another former City player had said about him.
He said: “He was a great talent, he surprised me and he was young.
“Didi Hamann said to me once ‘Boss, this guy is the best midfielder I’ve ever played with,’ and I said ‘do you really mean that?’ ‘Yes.’
“I mean Didi Hamann played for Liverpool, he played for Bayern Munich, he played for Germany, 50, 60, 70 games, something like that. Coming from him that’s extremely good but Michael was that good.
“He was extremely good and some years later when I came to Leicester, one of the first things I did, I bought him, but unfortunately, it didn’t go well but at City he was great.”
Looking back over the 2007/08 season when Eriksson was in charge of the Citizens, the Englishman featured in 25 games across the Premier League and FA Cup, scoring two goals and delivering three assists, predominantly playing as a defensive-midfielder.
Specifically, Hamman said that Johnson was a more “complete” player as a youngster than Gerrard and Michael Ballach were.
With that in mind, it raises the question once again about what sort of career Johnson would have had if he had been playing regularly beyond the 2007/08 season and not been troubled with mental struggles away from the pitch.
